I’ve spent the last decade of my career as a therapist working in addiction treatment. Helping men and women begin a process of recovery, after they’ve reached the end of the road with drugs, alcohol, or some other compulsive behavior, is still what I love to do. After all…

Recovery is a process that has LOVE written all over it!

In order to successfully recover from addiction, you have to connect to a source of strength, power, pleasure, and comfort that comes from a source outside yourself. But that’s no small order.

❤️ It’s got to be MORE powerful than the cravings that pull you into a dark, secret spiral of addiction.

❤️ It’s got to help you find comfort and pleasure BETTER than your drug of choice ever did.

❤️ And it’s got to be a source of strength that helps build your life UP… instead of burning it to the ground.

Here’s the catch, though.

You aren’t going to find this solution or source anywhere in the comfort zone you’re already familiar with. Which makes sense. Because if anything you already have, or know, could help you, then… why wouldn’t it have helped already? 😜

The thing is, the solution to the despair and insanity of addiction is the same antidote to the despair and insanity of everyday human life — for addicts and non-addicts alike.

The way to a better life lies in a close, trusting, and loving relationship.

A relationship that will reveal the beautiful TRUTH of who you are.

And all beautiful relationships start with the same foundation…

Your relationship with LOVE itself.

A personal relationship with love?

How in the heck do you get started with something like that?

Simple.

The first step is just admitting you WANT love in your life.

The most positive turning point in my recovery didn’t happen when I made the choice to get sober from drugs and alcohol. Not by a long shot.

It was some years later, when I found myself so stuck, and so emotionally low, that I allowed myself to admit the reality I had always found too humiliating — and way too close-to-the-bone — to say out loud. Because it didn’t matter whether I was in active addiction, or stone-cold sober.

Either way….

I was starved for LOVE!

That was the (humbling) admission that made me willing — FINALLY! — to open myself up to learning how to give and receive lots MORE love (to myself and to others) than I ever had before.